Please note as of January 5, 2009 all commentary except original submissions will be archived here. You can also read our current newsletter online.
The warped platitude of DC "centrism"
by GLENN GREENWALD 
In defense of Dennis Kucinich
Why I'll be cheering if his vote kills healthcare reform
BY HEATHER MICHON
Salon Radio: Manipulative use of the term "Terrorism"
BY GLENN GREENWALD
CIA drone attacks produce America's own unlawful combatants
by Gary Solis
"In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war."
U.S.-Israel rift undermining some long-standing taboos
by GLENN GREENWALD
"The rather extraordinary dust-up between the U.S. and Israel has, among other benefits, shined a light on two of the most taboo yet self-evidently true propositions: (1) our joined-at-the-hip relationship with Israel is a significant cause of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, fuels attacks on Americans, and entails a very high price for the U.S. on multiple levels; and (2) many American neoconservatives have their political beliefs shaped by allegiance to Israel."
Bagram FOIA
report from the ACLU
"The ACLU is asking the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention, as well as records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants."
Obama threatens to veto greater intelligence oversight
by GLENN GREENWALD
"To their credit, Congressional Democrats -- over the objections of right-wing Republicans -- have been attempting since the middle of last year to fix this serious problem, by writing legislation to severely narrow the President's power to conceal intelligence activities from the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and abolish the 'Gang of Eight' process...Yet these efforts to ensure transparency and oversight have continuously run into one major roadblock: Barack Obama's threat to veto the legislation."
A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully
by Marc Ambinder
"Why is the national security community treating the 'Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,' introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration's choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt?"
PROMISES, PROMISES: Is gov't more open with Obama?
by SHARON THEIMER
Israel Crackdown Puts Liberal Jews on the Spot
by Chris Hedges
"The Israeli government, its brutal war crimes in Gaza exposed in detail in the U.N. report by Justice Richard Goldstone, has implemented a series of draconian measures to silence and discredit dissidents, leading intellectuals and human rights organizations inside and outside Israel that are accused--often falsely--of assisting Goldstone's U.N. investigators."
Spy Takes US-Israeli Secrets to Grave
by Robert Parry
"Last week’s death of Israeli spymaster David Kimche – and the omissions in his obituaries about his most sensitive operations, especially those regarding the United States – are a reminder of how much crucial history is being lost as key figures from this era take their secrets to the grave."
Iraq War Triumphalism Ignores a Key Matter: Dead Civilians
by David Corn
The Woman Who Just Might Save the Planet and Our Pocketbooks
What if our economy was not built on competition? Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom talks about her work on cooperation in economics.
by Fran Korten and Elinor Ostrom
Those authoritarian, torture-loving French
by GLENN GREENWALD
Has Rahm's assumption about progressives been vindicated?
by GLENN GREENWALD
Washington Post Blames Obama First, on Israel
by Robert Parry
"In a phrase that the neocons used in the 1980s to demonize Americans who criticized Ronald Reagan’s bloody policies in Central America, it could be said that the Post’s editorial writers are “blaming America first” – and largely taking the side of Israel."
Jerusalem and Washington: On Stage/Backstage
by Michael Brenner
"Theatre provides the most apt metaphors for understanding what is happening between Washington and Jerusalem. For it is more about a script gone awry than a conflict over objectives and interests."
The Woeful Washington Post
By Robert Parry
"Though there are still a few liberal voices, like Eugene Robinson, the Post’s opinion sections are dominated by neoconservatives and right-wingers who pile up mountains of misinformation that then shapes the potent conventional wisdom of the nation’s capital."
The Court Must Defend Torture Victims' Rights
by Sen. Arlen Specter
The Tea Party Is All About Race
by Bob Cesca
"The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.
The WP: Obama close to reversing Holder on civilian trials
by GLENN GREENWALD
The WP's employment of a fear-mongering smear artist
by GLENN GREENWALD
Does the Obama Administration Even Want to Win in November?
by Simon Johnson
Lynn Woolsey Should Resign as Head of the Progressive Caucus
by Jane Hamsher
The full-scale collapse: From Murrow to Blitzer
by GLENN GREENWALD
Reform the Filibuster
by Sen. Michael Bennet
"The filibuster was originally intended to protect minority rights and encourage meaningful debate on the Senate floor. Today, this important rule is being abused at an unprecedented rate, and it's grinding the business of the Senate to a standstill."
Tearing up the social contract, piece by piece
Thanks to Cheney, kids now grow up thinking that torture is a "controversy" rather than plain wrong
by DIGBY
Who are the actual "crazy" people in American politics?
by GLENN GREENWALD
How Reagan's Propaganda Succeeded
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
"In the 1980s, CIA propaganda experts and military psy-war specialists oversaw the creation of special programs aimed at managing public perceptions in targeted foreign countries as well as inside the United States, according to declassified documents at Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Library."
The Way Forward on Health Care
by Drew Weston
Why do journalists expect to have credibility?
by GLENN GREENWALD
Calling All Rebels
by Chris Hedges
"There are no constraints left to halt America’s slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners."
Jason Leopold on Cheney, Torture, and Obama's Shortsightedness
by Joan Brunwasser [interview]
Congressional condemnation of Cheney/Kristol?
by GLENN GREENWALD
"It would therefore not only be politically plausible, but valuable, for the Congress to officially condemn these McCarthyite attacks on Justice Department lawyers."
Fiction of Marjah as City Was US Information War
by Gareth Porter
"Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley."
Obama sabotages himself with fake "pragmatism"
by GLENN GREENWALD
"All of this underscores a vital point: the Obama White House is hamstrung by its own embrace of the Bush/Cheney Terrorism template in advocating for its own policies."
The Oath Keepers: The Militant and Armed Side of the Tea Party Movement
Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.
by Justine Sharrock
Should Progressives Give Up on Obama? Chris Hedges vs. Rabbi Lerner
by Chris Hedges and Michael Lerner
American elites abandon their faux regret over Iraq
by GLENN GREENWALD
"For tribalists and nationalists, America can err in its execution but never in its motives."
Small Government Conservative
How can you be in two places at once...?
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
"The Hurt Locker": When Great Art Meets Lousy Politics
by Bernard Weiner
Carville/Greenberg strategists and national security
by GLENN GREENWALD
Military commissions: A bad idea
They are a legal experiment that the Supreme Court has rejected. Federal courts can handle complex terrorism trials
by LT. COL. DARREL VANDEVELD AND JOSHUA DRATEL
The Democrats' scam becomes more transparent
by GLENN GREENWALD
"Faced with the dilemma of how they could possibly justify their year-long claimed support for the public option only now to fail to enact it, more and more Democratic Senators were pressured into signing a letter supporting the enactment of the public option through reconciliation; that number is now above 40, and is rapidly approaching 50."
Entering the Scary "Lacuna" of American Politics
by Bernard Weiner
Doing the WaveWhen the tide turns, it turns for thee
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Why Bob Gates needs a course in IR theory
by Stephen M. Walt
"The only way to get our European allies to bear a significantly larger share of the collective defense burden would be to reduce our own contribution significantly; nagging them as Gates did hasn't worked in the past and won't work now."
Why Patrick Leahy Is Afraid to Subpoena Yoo
by David Swanson
Iran in the Middle
by Peter G. Cohen
"For Iran, there is the goad of seeing Israel violate dozens of UN. resolutions and build hundreds of nuclear weapons without joining the Non Proliferation Treaty or allowing international inspections."
The NYT Veers Neocon
by Robert Parry
"Many American progressives don’t want to recognize how bad the U.S. mainstream news media has become."
The Enthusiasm Gap
by Robert Reich
"The Democratic base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the base cares about."
Genuine American exceptionalism on due process
by GLENN GREENWALD
"The Obama administration has made explicitly clear its intention to deny civilian trials to scores of detainees, by sending some to military commissions and imprisoning others indefinitely without any charges. And for those cases where it has deigned to provide real due process -- such as its decision to try the 9/11 defendants in a criminal court -- it is moving in the wrong direction."
Dredging up the Israel/apartheid question
by GLENN GREENWALD
Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama
by Chris Hedges
Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy
By Paul Craig Roberts
"Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi'ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control."
Twin Swelling Heads of Empire and Oligarchy Driving USA into Ever-deepening Corporate State, Wholly Incompatible With Democracy
by Ralph Nader
Salon Radio: The lawyers smeared by Liz Cheney
by GLENN GREENWALD
Transcript: Jonathan Hafetz on GITMO lawyers
by GLENN GREENWALD
Northwest at risk of earthquake like one in Chile
After Chile, an earthquake and possible tsunami threaten the U.S.
by ALICIA CHANG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rahm Emanuel: Obama's Chief Of Sabotage
by Dan Froomkin
Are we better off without religion?
We should be careful about drawing rash conclusions from the correlation between religiosity and societal breakdown
by Sue Blackmore
Iraq Withdrawal in Danger
Dear Mr. President: Scrap the Military's Contingency Plans for an Extended Stay in Iraq
by Tom Andrews
"Just when you thought that the proverbial fat lady was about to launch into an aria over the final withdrawal of US military forces in Iraq, the US military announced that it is drawing up contingency plans to delay the withdrawal."
The GOP cage-match strategy
Republicans are relying on media complicity and public ignorance to paralyze government. It's brazen, and risky
by GENE LYONS
If Rahmbo is going rogue, what will Obama do?
Rahm Emanuel wins plaudits in the mainstream media, even as his boss plunges. But he isn't talking, "on the record"
by JOE CONASON
US Media Replays Iraq Fiasco on Iran
by Robert Parry
"Major U.S. news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, are engaged in a replay of the kind of slanted coverage that paved the way to war in Iraq, only this time regarding Iran."
Obama's Nuclear Decision Day
by Joe Cirincione
The Media's Billion Dollar Ad for Evan Bayh
by Cenk Uygur
"Bayh masked his craven capitulation to corporate lobbyists with a veneer of bipartisanship and moderation."
Band-Aids, Bipartisanship and Baby-Steps: How Not to Deal With a Jobs Crisis
by Arianna Huffington
Happy Anniversary, Recovery Act
by Bob Cesca
Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word
by GLENN GREENWALD
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Evaluating Obama so far
by Joan Brunwasser
It Is Now Official: The U.S. Is A Police State
by Paul Craig Roberts
Who's in control in the White House?
If you thought the rogue sensibility went away with the Bushes, think again
by DAVID SIROTA
The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud
by GLENN GREENWALD
"There's a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once against donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the 'tea party' movement."
The Bush nostalgia of Rahm and the Beltway
by GLENN GREENWALD
Justice Department Will Not Punish Yoo and Bybee Because Most Lawyers Are Scum Anyway
by Jack Balkin.
"In deciding not to refer charges to state bar committees, Margolis does not tell us that Yoo and Bybee behaved admirably or according to the high standards that we should expect from Justice Department lawyers."
The flailing falsehoods of America's war criminals
by GLENN GREENWALD
"I didn't think it was possible, but former Bush officials -- desperately fighting what they know will be their legacy as war criminals -- have become even more dishonest propagandists out of office than they were in office."
The Binyam Mohamed case and the threat of dictatorship
by Robert Stevens
"The mounting evidence of the routine use of torture and abuse is of great political significance not only in Britain, but in the United States and internationally. These cases reveal that the entire state machinery in the US and Britain is guilty of heinous crimes, including sadistic torture."
How to tell what's what in Afghanistan
Five questions about the progress of the surge
by JUAN COLE
Do it with 51 votes
The 60-vote requirement for healthcare is made up. 51 is a majority, and it's all we need
by ROBERT REICH
President Obama, A CEO Would Change Up the Team
by Steve Clemons
"President Obama's closest handlers -- Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs -- are under fire from a number of observers, including this one, for deploying the President's political capital badly, failing to animate and empower the considerable policy and political talent they have appointed to key positions on their team, poorly sequencing their policy gambits, and not having 'plan B's' ready to go after they threw down the gauntlet on some challenge (Israeli settlements comes to mind), among other sins."
Inside the mind of Newsweek on "terrorism"
by GLENN GREENWALD
Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle
by Matt Taibbi
Marjah Offensive Aimed to Shape US Opinion on War
by Gareth Porter
"The Post report, by Greg Jaffe and Craig Whitlock, both of whom cover military affairs, said the town of Marjah would not have been chosen as a target for a U.S. military operation had the criterion been military significance instead of impact on domestic public opinion."
The GOP is betting America fails
by Brent Budowsky
War game shows how attacking Iran could backfire
by Warren P. Strobel
Excessive bipartisanship and other matters
by GLENN GREENWALD
Goodbye to All That
By LINCOLN CHAFEE
"Barack Obama stood in as a kind of third-party candidate in 2008, with an attractive message of hope, change and a post-partisan approach. He captured that popular, centrist energy for the Democrats. So far, I’m sorry to say, he’s proving my assertion that Republicans lead in the wrong direction and Democrats are unable to lead in any direction at all."
Should We Fear China?
by Simon Johnson
Propaganda meets professor at the health summit
The Republicans brought standard propaganda to Blair House -- where the president confronted them with basic facts
by JOE CONASON
Michael Mukasey: Then and now
by GLENN GREENWALD
"Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey has become the leading spokesman for a Cheneyite national security attack, which relies on scaring Americans into believing that Obama is endangering their lives in those rare instances when he deviates from Bush's Terrorism approach."
Obama vs. Obama
by Michael Brenner
"A few elements of Obama's personality are now evident: a strong narcissistic streak, an ingrained sense of superiority, a nimbleness - intellectual and political - enabled by the incredible lightness of his conviction about anything, an audacious ambition yet no gumption for a fight."
OBAMA: DUMBER THAN SARAH PALIN
by Ted Rall
Hard Times for Holder Continue
by Kyle Berlin
Our human rights v. The Others
by GLENN GREENWALD
Religious faith in government accusations
by GLENN GREENWALD
"In other words, if one hears only the Government's unchallenged, untested accusations about detainees and others whom it labels Terrorists and Enemy Combatants, it semes clear and obvious that the person is an Evil, Dangerous and Bad Man. But when those accusations are actually subjected to scrutiny by courts, it turns out that -- in the overwhelming majority of cases -- there is virtually no reliable evidence to support them."
Obama's secret prisons in Afghanistan endanger us all
by Johann Hari
Empathic Myopia
by Digby
"There's something about the American right that requires a very specific degree of identification for them to be empathetic and it goes beyond race, although race is certainly a factor."
The all-powerful Lindsey Graham must not be displeased
by GLENN GREENWALD
Seven Paragraphs
NYT editorial
"There are times when governments fight to keep documents secret to protect sensitive intelligence or other vital national security interests. And there are times when they are just trying to cover up incompetence, misbehavior or lawbreaking."
Progressive Hardball
by Robert Kuttner
"If Democrats can start sounding like Democrats again, they'll have a better shot at holding onto their majority in Congress next November."
The Democrats' Response to Citizens United: Not (Even Close to) Good Enough
by Lawrence Lessig
Cheney Exposes Torture Conspiracy
by Robert Parry
"If the United States had a functioning criminal justice system for the powerful – not just for run-of-the-mill offenders – former Vice President Dick Cheney would have convicted himself and some of his Bush administration colleagues with his comments on ABC’s 'This Week.'"
A profile in cowardice
by GLENN GREENWALD
Special Comment: Tea Parties And Race
by Keith Olbermann
Dick Cheney's taunting
by GLENN GREENWALD
Evan Bayh's farewell: Self-serving, smarmy and false
Mainstream journalists repeat Bayh's complaint about extremists on both sides. But they (and he) know it is a lie
by JOE CONASON
The Info Super-Sewer; Are Corporations Using the Net to Accelerate Our Cultural, Political and Economic Decline?
by Chris Hedges
Does Dick Cheney Want to be Prosecuted?
by Scott Horton
The Mysterious Death of Bush's Cyber-Guru
by Simon Worrall
"The plane, it was said, had been sabotaged and the pilot murdered to cover up the GOP’s alleged theft of the Ohio vote in the 2004 presidential election."
The U.S. Has Been Torturing. Case Closed -- Literally
by Harry Shearer
WellPoint's heart-stopping rate increase
The health insurance company finds itself in congressional investigators' cross hairs
by WENDELL POTTER
Hillary Clinton gets tough with "military dictatorships"
by GLENN GREENWALD
More Continuity Than Change
by JOHN B. BELLINGER III
Snow Flakes
Right wing losing what passes for its mind over global warming
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
What Locals Know About Real Estate--and what the Big Guys could learn (but won't)
by Daniel Patrick Welch
Can the Ticking Middle East Conflict Be Defused?
by Bernard Weiner
The Lynch Mob mentality
by GLENN GREENWALD
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